Western notions of leadersip can obscure the complexity of colonial history. This article examines ethnic relations in Hawai'i via its Hansen's disease colony during the years immediately preceding the overthrow of the monarchy. Popular accounts of Kalaupapa portray a nineteenth-century prison of iniquity where native Hawaiians, sequestered from the controls of civilization, degenerated to a state of "savagery" until a European priest saved them. This image is challenged by letters and reports to the Board of Health, which invoke an alternative history focused on the dialogue between native patients and foreign advisors in government. It is argued here that the settlement functioned with mitigated autonomy until shifts in power induced tighter control. The goal is not to replace the white heroic myth with a brown one; rather, the data introduced invoke an interpretation politicized by tension between native Hawaiian and foreign interests. Kalaupapa was a Hawaiian community with permeable boundaries and indigenous leadership. Successful resident managers were not rebels or crusaders; they were mediators between white administrators and native patients.

Kalaupapa (Hawaii)--Social conditions; Leprosy; Ethnic relations; Biography